


tu me manques

by crazyparakiss



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-07
Updated: 2017-11-07
Packaged: 2019-01-20 12:07:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12432489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crazyparakiss/pseuds/crazyparakiss
Summary: Sirius knows what it is to die, yet keep breathing, he’s been dead for years.





	tu me manques

**Author's Note:**

> **Prompt #:** 14  
>  **Warnings:** Incest, talk of sex with Regulus when he’s 12 and Sirius is 14 (not too explicit), a bit of dubious consent that leans heavily towards non-con, canonical deaths and semi-canonical  
>  **Disclaimer:** I don’t own any of these characters or things, hell I don’t own my car yet.  
>  **A/N:** Probably the only canon compliant-ish thing I will ever write.

_Show me a hero, and I'll write you a tragedy._

 

“We were born to cruel circumstances,” Regulus had whispered often enough, as his fingers carded through Sirius’s dark hair. Short nails tickling the scalp with intent, a heavy yet silent communication.

“Were we,” Sirius would respond, every time, tone laden with words left unsaid.

*

He wakes, in this ghost of his home, to the sounds of Molly puttering about in the kitchens and another scurry of Aurors coming through—to relay information. Mother screams herself hoarse in the hall, an echo of the lovely Walburga Sirius once knew and he smiles. Grin malicious yet weary as he makes his way to the old portrait, to slam its curtains closed. There’s no satisfaction in the motions.

Nothing of this place moves him anymore. When he first beheld this portrait, of a woman he did not recognise, Sirius frowned. This was not the woman he left, in these walls, at sixteen—this was a stranger, bellowing hatred at him in a voice that was not his mother’s. Walburga, his darling Mother, had been gentle of tone but fierce with intention. She’d a head of long, dark curls, and enviable pale skin that had not a blemish upon its surface. There was nothing of that woman in this portrait—where her lush red mouth should be there were thin lips wrapped around a hollow scream. Where grey eyes should have been painted—half mast and beguiling—there were, instead, wide, mad eyes with pupils eating the entirety of her irises. “Oh, Mother,” Sirius whispers when she screams that he is the vile disappointment she never wanted. “I never asked to be born.”

Harry is a strange but welcome presence. He looks of one of the lost happinesses from Sirius’s life—the other lost joy stares back at Sirius in the morning, each dawn, an echo of another. So he clings to this James that was born to distract him from the darkness.

But Sirius dislikes James’s face and voice as they rub salt into his wounds. He’s already living in a constant hell being in these walls, but to have his only reprieve look at him and dig up a past he doesn’t want to relieve kills him a little.

Harry begins looking at his family tree in wonder, and the expression turns to outrage when he realises Sirius has been burned away—reduced to nothing in the fabrics that were meant to last for all time. There’s a bitterness in him when Harry asks why he left, and Sirius rattles off about the maniacal pureblood rhetoric of his parents—he still hates them. But not for the reasons he told James and the reasons he now shares with James’s son. Sirius hated them because their purity twisted something in him—in Regulus—and it ruined them as nothing else could. Not even war.

“...my idiot brother,” his voice drops the rage and turns to gentle melancholy, eyes going half-lidded when they fall upon Regulus’s name, “soft enough to believe them...that’s him.” He casts a finger in the direction of Regulus’s legacy—sneering so as not to sob when he looks upon the year of his death. Only the year because no one knew the day. Sirius knows—he can recall the day as if it were something that took place this morning; not some decade and a half ago.

November third was supposed to be a wonderful day, a day of celebration, as it had been for twenty years prior. From the moment Sirius had blessed the world with his presence, but that was the worst day of his life, and has remained a day of mourning since. He was in the middle of Diagon, with Lily and James, on his way to another pub when he stumbled to a stop. How does it feel to lose half of your soul? Sirius could tell you. Dying is kinder; Sirius knows what it is to die yet keep breathing. James had startled at his sudden weeping, and Lily, with the new maternal glow in her cheeks, had hugged him. Held him close as his own mother had not in years, and he buried his nose into her hair as he sobbed harder. The hardest part was knowing that he could not tell them the reason for his tears, so Sirius had to suffer in silence. Breaking alone, as he had so many times before.

Now with Harry, Sirius sighs, informing his godson, “He was younger than me.” He feels the memories etch themselves into the lines around his eyes, as he recalls his parents doting on Regulus. “And a much better son, as I was constantly reminded.” Something Sirius used to whisper against his brother as he held him close _Show me what it is to be a good boy, Regulus._

“But he died,” Harry has a tinge of sorrow to his tone as if he is worried for Sirius. Hurting for him and Sirius knows he deserves nothing of this child’s pity.

“Yeah,” Sirius almost laughs. “Stupid idiot,” his tone enamored, if only to him. “He joined the Death Eaters.”

His mind wanders as he tells Harry about Regulus, stupid Regulus, being murdered on Voldemort’s orders. “I doubt Regulus was ever important enough to be killed by Voldemort in person.” Regulus, Sirius knows, was worth everything. Worthy of all acknowledgments and, if anything, Voldemort was not worthy enough to undo a Black with his own magic. He spoke with Bella, when she came to Azkaban along with her mad husband and listened as she mocked his brother. Called him weak, moronic, _soft_.

“But you’d know all about how soft he was, wouldn’t you, Sirius,” she had jeered, with demure eyes and an insane cackle. “His lissome body got you burnt off the tree.” A softness Sirius would gladly know again, a sin he would commit a thousand times over no matter the cost.

After, that night, when he’s alone to his thoughts Sirius wanders from his room to Regulus’s old room. It’s empty, and he is grateful as he sits upon the bed. Touching the bedside cabinet where one of Regulus’s many books still remains. Mother, it seems, couldn’t bear to touch either of their rooms when they were gone. In her own way, she had loved them. Kreacher finds him there. Wretched monster.

Hissing at Sirius, “Nasty boy, always breaking my mistress’s heart.” Sirius doesn’t scold him, not here in the sanctity of this room. “Master Regulus, sweet Master, wept for you.” Sirius clenches his jaw, swallowing as he thinks of his brother, at fourteen, weeping into his fine pillows. “Mistress should’ve cast Sirius out as an infant.”

Indeed, Sirius thinks, if she had Regulus might still be here. “Leave me, Kreacher,” Sirius commands, weary, and the beast goes. Bowing and calling him Master with a veil of resentment in his words.

Back in his own room, Sirius pries up the loose floorboard beneath his bed. Retrieving a diary he’d discovered his first day back. The beautiful loops of Regulus’s writing sting Sirius with memory.

_Today Sirius took me to the garden, in a hidden alcove, and whispered that he had a gift for me. The gift was one I can never tell others, and I felt both thrilled and terrified as he touched my body. I tried not to think of what Father McNeil would say if he knew. I’m not sure any amount of confession would absolve me, but even still I do not regret what was done. I only worry what will happen if we are caught. Sirius isn’t going to stop. He doesn’t believe in quelling desire, and I’m his so I will yield to his command._

Sirius puts his face into his hands, thinking of how Kreacher is right, Mother should’ve put him out long before he could ruin his brother. He’s not like the great uncles he heard whispers of, the ones who paid shiny coin to play with boys who could not consent, but Sirius feels evil when he recalls his youth with Regulus. He’d had Regulus young, too young, because he feared to lose him to another. His obsession with Regulus began at birth and his father’s constant talk of how Regulus would be his responsibility. Something his father took back when Sirius became unruly and was unable to be controlled.

Regulus had been twelve the first time Sirius broke his own promise to wait, his internal mantra to leave Regulus pure had left him when his brother confessed to kissing a girl. Sirius had known kisses, had known clumsy hands learning the art of touch, at fourteen, and that had pushed him over the edge. So he dragged Regulus to the garden and whispered that he had a gift. It started with a kiss, and progressed from there. Sirius can remember blood, he can remember tears, but not once had Regulus said stop. He’d been a clumsy lover at fourteen, and for two years he grew better. Learned from older boys when they’d chat in the dorms, and took that knowledge to his brother, as often as he could.

Mother caught them when Sirius was sixteen. They’d been together in a bath, Sirius’s mouth where it had no business being, and he can still recall the way her face went white like snow. Horrified she’d stumbled, gripping the jamb of the door, clutching her heart. “What are you doing, Sirius?”

He hadn’t an answer, and her question didn’t require one. What he was doing was obvious. He stood, naked, unashamed and said, “I love him.” Mother had slapped him for his insolence.

“This isn’t love, it is sin,” she’d hissed. Then with tears in her eyes she’d added, “Get out, Sirius. You are not my son.”

She never told Father, of course, she never told anyone. Mother would not let Sirius’s lust ruin Regulus more than it had already. He understood, of course, when his letters went unanswered. He did not blame her for protecting Regulus, if he had been her Sirius would’ve done the same. It was easy enough to lie to his mates and tell them he’d been flung into the streets due to his inability to conform to their ideal heir. The Blacks were known for bigotry, after all. He spun the lie so often it almost became truth to Sirius.

Until the second of November in 1979. It had been cold, with a heavy snow blanketing London and Sirius had stood on his balcony, shirtless, with a spliff watching the fat flakes come down. For once his night was quiet, no friends crashing at his flat, no parties needing attending, nothing. So he’d stood in the stillness wondering if this was a premonition.

A knock at his door came, and Sirius remembers frowning, wondering who would call at his home so late. He hadn’t expected to find Regulus on the other side of the door. Grey eyes wide and hopeful as they’d always been, black hair damp from snow, and cheeks pink from the kiss of the wind; neither of them said a word and Sirius moved, wrapping his fingers into Regulus’s hair, hauling his brother into a fierce kiss.

The wall of his flat was where Sirius put Regulus’s back, trapping him against it as he ravaged his mouth. His kiss held questions: _why now, will you stay, do you love me?_ None of them were ever vocalised, but he felt them answered in the dig of Regulus’s fingers in the skin of his shoulders, in the teeth that nipped at his stubbled jawline, and the way he whined Sirius’s name like a prayer.

When he’d got Regulus naked he paused, eyes immediately drawn to the mar of black, rippling inks in his left forearm. The Dark Mark was hideous; an insidious brand that should’ve never touched the beauty of Regulus. “You come to me, now, with the mark of another man upon you,” Sirius hissed in jealousy. “For all his rage of purity that man is a muddied, lowborn cur, Regulus,” Sirius bit into the flesh of Regulus’s naked collarbone, “He is not worthy of branding you.”

Regulus’s hand was gentle at his cheek, gaze wet and loving as he whispered, “Then come, Brother, and punish me for being unworthy.”

Sirius had marked him as fully as he could. Biting deep brands into his hips, his shoulder, the flesh over his heart; sometimes his teeth went deep enough to break skin, spilling blood down the white expanse of Regulus’s flesh. “More,” Regulus would command, with tears in his eyes, “I want to feel you deeper, Sirius.”

It was not gentle, not as it had been in the past, it was brutal. An affirmation of what they were to one another, what they still remain. Sirius touches the scar, a mark of teeth that resides in the flesh over his heart, and remembers how Regulus had claimed him back. Recalls the way his white teeth were tinged pink with Sirius blood, their shared blood, as he smiled and whispered, “You are mine, as I am yours.”

Sirius never said that he loved him, Regulus never said those words either, but they both knew that was what bloomed between them. He’d always wished that in Regulus his seed could take, and still now he wishes that could have been. Had Regulus been a woman, perhaps a child could’ve kept him from dying, perhaps a child would’ve been the only decent thing Sirius could’ve given his name.

That’s what he thinks of as he touches his scar, remembering the warmth of Regulus against him. He’s going to be the death of their name, the last of the Blacks goes with him. Even if he survives this war Sirius knows he will never love another enough to give them his child. He cannot bring himself to marry, or to be anything more than damaged.

“I loved you,” he whispers to nothing, still tracing the remains of Regulus. “I still love you, you soft idiot.” Sirius flops onto his bed, looking up at his ceiling, “I still don’t forgive you, Regulus. You need to come back and beg my forgiveness.”

*

 _I’ve nothing to lose_ , Sirius thinks with a mad cackle as he battles it out with Bellatrix. Her joy equal to his own in violence. There’s a stumble, a weakness in him, and she uses it to win. “I killed your brother,” she tells him with a cruel hiss. “He begged for you to save him as I undid him, layer by layer.”

It’s enough to startle him into lowering his defences, even as he taunts her with a laugh, “Come on, you can do better than that!” She can do better, and _does_ when another curse hits him square in the chest. He’s surprised and there’s a moment of fear that fills him as his eyes widen. _What now, I’m not ready to die, Regulus._ So many thoughts racing through him as he stumbles backwards, towards a veiled arch. He can faintly hear Harry scream and he thinks, _I’m sorry, James._

*

Sirius wakens to the scent of breakfast, and familiar noises in the kitchen. He wonders if he’s back at Number Twelve and if Molly is preparing for the day, for the Aurors and members of The Order. When he opens his eyes the room is his but different. There are no watermarks and it isn’t heavily coated with years of dust. Rather his bedroom looks as it had when he was sixteen and still welcome in his home. Immediately, Sirius is wary as he rises from his bed. The carpets are plush and rich crimson--not faded as they were only yesterday. He frowns in confusion. _How long have I been asleep? Did they right things in my absence?_ A myriad of questions filling him as he makes his way down to the kitchens.

When he opens the door he pauses, clutching the brass knob of the handle as a lump clogs his throat. “Regulus,” the name comes out a croaked whisper.

His brother turns, and he is the Regulus Sirius held that last time. Eighteen, beautiful, _alive_. His bare forearm is blemish free here and Sirius swallows, “Am I dead?”

“Always so clever, Sirius,” Regulus teases. Then stepping closer he puts his arms around Sirius’s neck, drawing him closer, his breath ghosting Sirius’s lips when he whispers, “I’ve been waiting here for you.” He seems sad when he adds, “I never wanted you to come so early, but we were born to cruel circumstances, weren’t we?”

“Were we,” Sirius responds, out of habit, before Regulus presses closer to kiss him.

Sirius is home.


End file.
